Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Strawberry season has come to the North! So we packed up the crew and hit the fields. All the kids were enthusiastic about the expedition (I am projecting on Vegan Daughter a bit, I suppose) and helped us pick 6 baskets of berries without eating too many along the way. We immediately made jam and I set aside some berries to make this delicious ice cream. I know the garnish may cause confusion, but I suppose you could also use raspberries in this as well (I would strain out the seeds, though).

METHOD1. Place berries and 1/2 cup of the sugar in a food processor and process until desired smoothness is reached (I left mine a bit chunky). Set aside.2. Place sugar and 1 1/2 cups of the soy milk in a saucepan.3. While soy milk is heating up, whisk arrowroot into remaining 1/2 cup of soy milk. Keep whisking it regularly to make sure the arrowroot does not settle.4. Skim cream off of the coconut milk and discard (or save for some other recipe) watery stuff. Place in a 2 cup measuring cup and add enough creamer to bring the volume to 2 cups.5. Heat soy milk/sugar mixture over medium heat until steaming. Slowly whisk in arrowroot mixture and cook until glossy. I let mine bubble every so slightly. Add coconut milk mixture and whisk well. If it does not seem glossy, cook until it is. Otherwise, remove from heat.6. Mix in strawberry mixture and vanilla. Let cool. Once cool, cover, and chill in the fridge overnight.7. Make ice cream according to the directions that came with your ice cream maker.

A reader on a previous post suggested the book "Vice Cream" which uses cashews. I have not checked it out. You can also play around with the liquids here, subbing in whatever non-dairy milk you want. The coconut milk will give your a high fat (and creamy) ice cream much like the "real thing" and lower fat versions will be more "icy."

Hi Vegan Dad, coconut milk may give a 'real thing' creamy texture, but it is high in saturated fat. The cashew version I mentioned before, tastes extremely creamy, but is high in monounsaturated fat. You could almost say the icecream made from cashews is actually good for you. If you don't count the calories. But who's counting?

Also there is no need to heat things up, use thickening agents, or cool it down over night.

If you had a blind tasting of the 'Vice Cream', you'd certainly not imagine nuts were used. I wonder does the coconut milk you use give a strong coconutty flavour? Don't get me wrong I love coconut, I can just imagine a pina colada version, but does it compete with the other flavourings?

Oh man, strawberries are already out of season by me. I just got an ice cream maker and will have to try something else. I wonder if blueberries would work? (I have a bunch of those...)

I don't worry about the saturated fat in coconut milk. Plant-based fat is still better than animal- based fat and my blood test showed lower cholesterol, lower than what's even recommended for diabetics (yay being vegan!). So I'm not worried about a little indulgence.

Eating is really one of my hobby i mean part of my life and cooking is my passion. I also love going to a place and at the same time taste their delicious and most wanted food.I want to taste something that is new to my palate. Thanks for sharing your article with us.